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Charger can't connect to Plugchoice

What to do if your charger charger remains on "Never Seen" or is otherwise experiencing connectivity issues with our systems.

This article is meant to help you connect a non-Volt Time charger to Plugchoice and you are experiencing a "Never Seen" status.

If you own a Volt Time charger that won't come online, check 📖Offline charger

What does Never Seen mean?

This means we have never had any communication with the charger at all. If there would have been any, the status would be Offline instead of Never Seen.

Testing the connection

You can try "waking up" or "refreshing" the connection by doing one of the following:

  • Click the "Configuration" tab. This will send a command to the charger.

  • Go to the "Commands" tab and do a "TriggerMessage" > "BootNotification".

  • Go to the "Proxy" tab and, without really doing anything, click "Save settings".

You can use these tricks during your testing to quickly check if the charger really is still offline.

Never Seen - How to Fix

Check the URL first

Most failed connections are a typo in the URL. It must be exactly:

ws://ocpp.plugchoice.com

  • nothing after .com, so no /v1 and no trailing slash

  • no spaces before or after

  • if your charger has separate host / port / path fields: host ocpp.plugchoice.com, port 80 for ws:// or 443 for wss://, and the path left empty

  • only append your chargepoint ID after the host when your charger's own guide says so

It may be us

It may be internet

  • Double check the internet connection of your charger. See 📖Offline charger for a list of things you can check per internet connectivity method (Ethernet, WiFi, 4G).

Checking the chargepoint ID

  • The problem is often that your chargepoint ID that you are using is incorrect. See 📖 Chargepoint ID for more information.

    • The Chargepoint ID is capital sensitive!

  • The chargepoint ID is not part of the websocket URL. On most chargers it goes in its own field.

Try websocket URL variations

Some chargers handle the end of the URL differently. If the plain address does not come online, try these, in this order:

  • ws://ocpp.plugchoice.com (the correct one, start here)

  • ws://ocpp.plugchoice.com/ with a trailing slash

  • ws://ocpp.plugchoice.com/[ChargepointID]

  • ws://ocpp.plugchoice.com/[ChargepointID]/

If your charger has a separate Chargepoint ID setting, fill that in and leave the ID out of the URL. Putting it in both places is a common cause of "Never Seen".

Try the unsecured connection

Your charger may not be carrying the right root certificate. ws:// does not use one, so it is the quickest way to tell a certificate problem apart from a URL problem:

  • ws://ocpp.plugchoice.com on port 80

If that comes online and wss:// does not, the charger is missing a root certificate. See below. Also check the charger has no separate setting forcing a secure connection.

If your charger requires a port to be specified, use port 443 for wss:// and 80 for ws://.

Still on an older endpoint?

Before ocpp.plugchoice.com we published two other addresses:

  • ws(s)://proxy.plugchoice.com/v1

  • ws(s)://proxy.volttime.com/v1

Both still work, so a charger already configured with one of them stays online and you do not have to go round every site. We no longer recommend them: the certificate chain behind those addresses is not the one we maintain going forward, so a charger that validates certificates strictly can start failing on them. Move a charger over to ocpp.plugchoice.com the next time you have it open.

Which certificates (Root CAs) does my charger need?

ocpp.plugchoice.com sits behind Cloudflare, and its certificate chains to Google Trust Services, with Let's Encrypt as the backup issuer. Most chargers already trust these. Some hardware keeps its own small list of root certificate authorities, and those chargers need the right roots installed before wss:// will connect at all.

Install these, from pki.goog/repository:

  • GTS Root R1 (RSA)

  • GTS Root R2 (RSA)

  • GTS Root R3 (ECDSA)

  • GTS Root R4 (ECDSA)

  • GlobalSign R4 (ECDSA)

Some chargers limit how many root certificates you can load, or accept only one key type. If you hit that limit, install GTS Root R1 and GTS Root R2 first: those two cover the common case.

We use Let's Encrypt as a backup issuer, so if your charger has room, also install these from letsencrypt.org/certificates:

  • ISRG Root X1 (RSA)

  • ISRG Root X2 (ECDSA)

If your charger cannot be given root certificates at all, use ws://ocpp.plugchoice.com on port 80. The connection is not encrypted, but the charger will come online.

The different root CA versions cover different algorithms (ECDSA versus RSA). If your firmware does not support one of them, you can leave that version out.

Alfen chargers

  1. Download this file. It carries the ISRG (Let's Encrypt) root.

  2. Upload it to your charger as a firmware update.

If the charger still will not connect over wss:// afterwards, it is missing the GTS roots listed above; add those too, or use ws://ocpp.plugchoice.com on port 80.

Alfen chargers may not carry the Plugchoice preset, instead only offering the Volt Time Cloud preset, which you should then choose!

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